Length 0:54:47 Date: Oct. 31, 2020

by Dr. Susan Block.

Welcome to Dr. Suzy’s Speakeasy in the DomCon Big Easy.

Dr. Suzy’s Speakeasy in the Virtual Big Easy is OPEN.

It’s Halloween in New Orleans, the quintessential city of spirits.

Mask up—for COVID safety and/or Halloween fun—make yourself comfortable and enjoy the Cajun-flavored festivities.

You’ll have to pour yourself your own drink because this is a virtual bar. Plus, we’re not really in New Orleans.

But it really is a DomCon Halloween with the voodoo-witchy spirit of New Orleans, so belly up to the bar and enjoy!

Drinks are on the house!

Dead Rising on Halloween Blue Moon

We call it “DomCon NOLA” (New Orleans, Louisiana), because that’s where it would have taken place if the Coronapocalypse hadn’t catapulted us into this crazy, masked-up, no-touch time warp.

In the BOOnoBOOville Pumpkin Patch under the Halloween Blue Moon.

The fact is that DomCon Head-Mistress Cyan takes a lot more responsibility for other people’s health than, say, a certain Presidunce whose ego is so YUGE he must hold tightly packed, mostly maskless COVID super-spreader rallies, or the Kardashian–Jenner clan who, at least, provide state-of-the-art on-site testing of their celebrity guests (but what about the staff?) at their Let-Them-Eat-Cake parties.

For those of us who don’t have a zillion bucks plus no conscience whatsoever, but still want to have a little spooky fetish fun… what better way to spend a Quarantined Halloween than Zooming into the DomCon-O-Sphere from the BOOnoBOOville Gardens pumpkin patch on My Magic Dildonic Vibrating Broom as the Blue Moon rises on the last night of Kinktober 2020?

Just a couple months ago, I attended DomCon LA 2020 Virtual where I was honored to be Mistress of Ceremonies, and delivered “The Bonobo Way of BDSM: FemDoms of the Wild.” As MC, I spent an entire, enthralling weekend latexed up in the DomCon-O-Sphere.

My DomCon NOLA appearance is more of a quickie—in and out in about an hour—just enough to hit the spot.

DomCon Mistress Photo and Dr. Suzy’s Speakeasy in the Big Easy with Mistresses, Goddesses, Sexy Witches and My Familiar, Chico.

After we take a Mistress Photo, at Mistress Cyan’s request, I host an “Ask Dr. Suzy” Q&A about anything and everything regarding sex, love, life and death. Hey, it’s Halloween, and with most of The Living in lockdown, it’s a great day for The Dead to rise and make their presence known.

Having surpassed 231,000 American deaths from COVID-19 as of this writing, you could say that the great and gloomy Thanatos—Greek God of Death and the Opposite of Eros, Greek God of Life, Sex and Love—is making His presence known throughout this eerie, creepy, nail-bitingly nerve-wracking, yet desperately hopeful Halloween.

The full moon isn’t exactly blue, though in certain types of polluted skies it could look that way.  We only call it “blue” because it’s the second full moon of October, the first having been October 2^nd, and that happens only “once in a blue moon.”

I also like to think our Halloween blue moon is auspicious for a voters’ Blue Wave. We’ll soon find out… maybe.

Mistress Cyan steers DomCon through the Coronapocalypse, with the Glamazon support of Goddess Phoenix whose “finger” is a DomCon tradition.

And yes, besides kinks, fetishes, fantasies, relationships, dating in the Coronapocalypse and various forms of scary sex (what are you afraid of that simultaneously turns you on?), we also talk about politics.

Well, I talk about politics. Sex is my profession. Politics is my hobby.

La Brujita de BOOnoBOOville

I’m also a witch, and not just on Halloween, though it’s my Samhain tradition to always don some kind of witchy gear.

Part of my work as a sex therapist involves the everyday “witchcraft” of putting people under my spell via erotic hypnosis.

You are getting sleeeeeeeepy….

I also consider the lifestyle FemDom or professional Dominatrix to be the witch of modern times.

That’s “La sorcière” en Française; “La Belladonna” en Italiano; “La Bruja” en Español, or “la Brujita” if you’re a little witch, like me.

Voodoo Witchcraft has long flourished in New Orleans, spawning many powerful covens of voodoo witches going back to Marie Leveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. 

A lot of people fantasize about being turned into a zombie—not the flesh-“feeding” kind—more the old-fashioned robot-like creature with no mind of their own, under the spell of a sexy voodoo witch or a hot FemDom, compelled to do whatever she desires which, since this is just a fantasy, would be whatever the “zombie” secretly desires but is afraid to do, thus must be “forced.”

New Orleans is also home to the amazing Anne Rice, who wrote Interview with a Vampire, as well as the notorious kinky “Beauty” books (under the nom de plum A.N. Roquelaure). I had the pleasure of interviewing Anne back in the 1980s (just before Vampire was published), when I was a grad student at San Francisco State and she was best-known as the wife of my English professor, the late great Stan Rice.  

Ask Me Anything. Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you… unless you really want me to.

Though I’ve never been to DomCon NOLA, I’ve enjoyed some unforgettable visits to New Orleans, tripping through the marvelous Mardi Gras, making out on the balcony above the bacchanalian parades, munching Beignet donuts in the French Quarter, patronizing strip and jazz clubs (including the original Preservation Hall), “playing dead” on an aboveground grave, coming in third place in a beer-guzzling contest (when I was barely old enough to drink beer) at Your Father’s Moustache, staggering drunk down Bourbon Street, seeing someone get fisted surrounded by a mob of Hurricane-guzzling voyeurs on the street.

With all that wildness, voodoo history and ghostly vampiric traditions, there’s no better place than New Orleans for Halloween, except Transylvania.  Unfortunately, none of us are there this year, which may be just as well considering how the Crescent City and surrounding areas had recently been hit hard by Hurricane Zeta, leaving several people dead and over two million without power. My heartfelt wishes for better times go to the amazing and imaginative people of New Orleans. Meanwhile, wildfires blaze and oceans acidify as Climate Catastrophe interlaces with the Coronapocalypse the world over.

Playing Dead on an Aboveground Grave in New Orleans (age 18). Photo: Julie Steinberg

We live in scary times.

So, it’s nice to spend a spooky Halloween in the reassuring company of my fellow witches and kinksters of DomCon.

Who’d think kink would be so comforting?

Big Easy Speakeasy

Mistress Cyan even provides me with a virtual dirty martini that looks like it’s just waiting for my unmasked lips on a polished dark wood table in a virtual Speakeasy bar that says “BAR.”

35 years later and we’re “Advertising for Love” more than ever.

At Dr. Suzy’s Big Easy Speakeasy, we “speak easy” about things that are not so easy to speak about.

Come on, Ask Me Anything… Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. Unless you really want me to.

I take questions and comments from the Dommes, Doms, subbies and switches of DomCon, as well as people watching on our Facebook Live feed.

My first question comes in from a sissy named Caroline on Facebook who wants to know if I have tips for her on dating, especially online dating, in the Coronapocalypse, and how she might find  someone who might appreciate her for who she is.

I’ve been helping people with dating, including online dating, ever since I wrote a very ahead-of-its-time book about the subject over thirty years ago called Advertising for Love.

Sissy Caroline goes on to say she really wants to meet a Mistress who will “use” her in domination videos. Well, she couldn’t ask for a better pool of potential Mistresses than DomCon. I also suggest she try Fetlife and, of course, Bonoboville, the best place to advertise for love with like-minded kinksters.

Great DomCon Halloween Headdresses: Goddess Lillith In Her Horns of Pan & Mistress Porcelain sporting Bat Wings. Watch the video to see Ms. P’s Spider Necklace that inspires Me to show off My Spider Stockings.

Goddess Lillith, sporting sexy Horns of Pan similar to the ones I wear on Lupercalia and Krampus, steps up with another question: “What do you know about Tantra?

Wow, that’s open-ended! It’s a little easier when the questions are more specific, but why would an international witches’ coven of demanding dominatrices make it easy for me?

As it happens, I do know a little something about Tantra, having studied several of its many manifestations in India, Nepal, New Haven and Southern California. There are so many approaches, aspects and schools of Tantra, but being pushed for time, I just focus on two: 1) Medibation—a combination of meditation and masturbation (the name created by Dr. Annie Sprinkle, one of Capt’n Max’s early collaborators) that I describe in more detail in my recent Sex in the Pews interview, and 2) Deep Breathing—a staple of Tantra and all forms of yoga, as well as most good sex. It’s amazing how often we forget to inhale or exhale, especially when we’re excited or scared, and deep breathing leads to deep relaxation, revelation and extended orgasm! Listen above or watch below for more of my Tantra tips.

If you want to open up about a fantasy that you’ve never revealed before, you might start by sharing a memory, something you really did with your partner before taking it up a notch to what you’d like to do.

Someone calling himself “Anonymous” (could it be Miles Taylor?) asks me how he can share his exhibitionist fantasies with his beloved wife (who doesn’t have a clue).

These days when I hear “exhibitionism,” I think “Zoom Dick.” Maybe it’s because I talked about it on last Saturday’s Bedside Chat and my Zoom Dick Follies piece was just posted this weekend in Counterpunch, so Jeffrey Toobin and his penis are now staying rent-free in my head.

Indeed, during the “Hollywood Squares” portion of DomCon, I keep expecting to see someone’s Zoom Dick pop up… or pop off. Or how about Zoom Clit?

Trick or treat!

No such luck—at least not during my quickie.

I also realized that on most of the Zoom group settings, you can either see yourself or the group, not both at once. Considering that, it’s surprising there aren’t more Zoom Dick incidents.

But “Anonymous” wasn’t Zoom-Dicking (is that a verb now?), so I try to address his question. If you want to open up about a fantasy that you’ve never revealed before, you might start by sharing a memory, something you really did with your partner before taking it up a notch to what you’d like to do.

For instance, you could say, “Wasn’t that fun that time we had sex outside? Do you think anyone saw us? What if they did? How would you feel if people were watching us?”

Halloween is a great time to try new things, whether it’s putting on costume of your erotic persona or exploring a kinky event you might not otherwise attend.

“Other Sea” on the DomCon Board corroborates my suggestion by adding that one Halloween night years go, he ventured into his first BDSM party, was surprised at how much he enjoyed it and has been going to–and hosting!–kinky events ever since.

Engineered by Mr. Banana. Photo: Harry Sapien

Another “Anonymous” individual who, in this case, sounds like a female, asks me how to advise her sister who desires women sexually but prefers men for romantic relationships. One key is that she was raised in a strict religious household. I agree with Dr. Alfred Kinsey that most people are bisexual (or at least, bi-curious) and, under the right circumstances, could have sex or fall in love with any gender. Obviously, I’d need to know more about Anonymous’ sister’s personal circumstances, but just the strict religious background gives me a hint as to why she might subconsciously separate “dirty” sex from divine love. Listen above or watch below to hear my answer to this common question which I also address in Bisexual Problem from Hell with Elizabeth, a married woman—with a female lover—who’s not religious, but struggles with some of the same feelings.  

I take a few more questions, then demonstrate how household items make great BDSM toys. For instance, my new Halloween skull “lawn ornament” works pretty well as a spanking paddle… as long as you don’t spank too hard or you might find your skull snaps off!  

Then I ask one of my illustrious attendees, the fabulous Mistress Porcelain Midnight, a frequent guest on DrSuzy.Tv and certainly an expert in the compassionate administration of scary sex, how she handles clients who are afraid of what turns them on. For her answer and more of our tips and advice, listen above or watch below.

Halloween Costumery

Always fashionable, Mistress Porcelain is sporting a beautiful bat headdress and spiderweb necklace, which I take as a cue to kick up my leg and show off my spiderweb thigh highs, a Halloween nylon classic.

Chico releases his inner bonobo by humping Ana’s leg. Photo: Harry Sapien

Costumes are important on Halloween, of course.

It’s fun to show off your scary self, your extreme, renegade, erotic and/or comic persona… if you dare.

I suggest that anyone who’s a little bit afraid to “come out” as their true sexual selves might try it for Halloween when they won’t be *judged* quite as stringently by friends or family as any other day.

Whereupon denizens of BOOnoBOOville emerge from the wings, like ghosts and goblins in a haunted house.

Adriana is outfitted as Slash of Guns ‘n’ Roses with a bowler top hat and shades, though Harry Sapien calls her Slash’s “love child” and hands her the guitar that the DTEASE smashed and signed for us.

Speaking of packing the Court with Puritans, it’s time for Smashing Trumpkin(s)!

Unscene Abe makes sure he is seen, releasing his inner bonobo, which is… a big banana! This costume looks as funny as it sounds, as you can see in the photos.

Ana is a little devil in blue Pan horns to match the blue moon.

Even Chico has a costume, a doggie shirt with cartoon Jack O’Lanterns.

With his perky pointy ears and diminutive form, from certain angles, he looks like a dog roleplaying a cat, so I cast him as my magical Witch’s Familiar.

Chico releases his inner bonobo by furiously humping Ana’s leg.

Halloween in BOOnoBOOville with Abe as a Banana, Chico as My Witch’s Familiar, Ana as a Blue Devil, Capt’n Max as Cotton Mather, Adriana as Slash & a Smashed Trumpkin on the floor. Photo: Harry Sapien

Capt’n Max wears one of my witch hats, making him look rather like Cotton Mather (who happened to have assisted in the founding of Yale) or some other Puritan judge who might blithely condemn a sexy witch to hang as easily as most of our current Supreme Court Justices might burn at the stake the American woman’s right to choose.

Smashing Trumpkin(s)

Speaking of packing the Court with Puritans, it’s time for Smashing Trumpkin(s)!

I’ve been talking about “Smashing Trumpkin(s)” throughout Kinktober, and not just because it’s an irresistible play on the name of the ‘90s band who brought us The Colour of Love.

It’s mainly because, in this not-so-humble sex therapist’s opinion, the Trumpkin in the White House must be smashed (metaphorically, of course, not literally; I’m too bonobo for literally smashing a human being, even a horrible one) before he wreaks more havoc in America, around the world and in our own deepest, most racist, sexist, selfish, vicious, jingoistic, narcissistic, utterly deluded hearts of darkness.

But usually I don’t actually smash the Trumpkin; I just talk about it, figuring I’ll smash it next week, but the damn things go rotten (like their namesake) so fast, they don’t even last a week.

So, might as well smash it in the session. Plus, it’s Halloween!

Oddly enough, we have our very own pumpkin patch here in the beautiful BOOnoBOOville Gardens.

We’re not sure how this strange pumpkin paradise got here—Johnny Pumpkinseed was among the previous occupants?

But it’s amazing; Linus of Charlie Brown would be very much at home communing with the Great Pumpkin right here.

Softening up the Trumpkin for his smashing with a little Halloween SKULL-fucking. Photo: Harry Sapien

To make our Trumpkin, Miguel takes one of the pumpkins out of the patch and carves it like a Jack O’Lantern with Trumpty Dumpty characteristics, a thatch of yellow straw for hair, beady little blueish eyes and, the most salient characteristic, a big round mouth… Perfect for penetrating with the business end of My Magic Dildonic Vibrating Broom.

Some say women don’t experience real pleasure from pegging.

But I certainly enjoy skull-fucking the pulp out of the evil Trumpkin!

Then it’s smashing time.

Max gives me the machete, and I bring it down on the bastard’s bad combover with as much witch power as I can muster.

Unfortunately, I barely make a dent.

Sometimes when you’re attempting to defeat a powerful force of evil, you just have to try and try again.

Max points out that I should remove the straw toupee and avoid attempting to cut into the stem, but go for the softer parts around it.

He’s right, of course… but why does he know so much about vegetation decapitation?

Let the Smashing Begin… with Slicing! Photo: Harry Sapien

As it turns out, bald Trumpkin proves easier to cut, slice, smash and trash.

What a great release for all my pent-up frustrations from four years of Agent Orange in the White House–not to mention my acute fears of another four or more!

Smashing Trumpkin is almost a guilty pleasure, as I feel a little like an ax murderer, but it’s only a winter squash.

I don’t even think hardcore vegans would call this murder.

I certainly don’t. It’s just a joke, Trumpers!

Despite the pumpkin juice flowing like orange blood across my red-bottom Louboutins, I’m still a Make-Love-Not-War bonobo gal.

Oh, what a release it is to finally smash the Trumpkin. Photo: Harry Sapien

In a way, it’s a form of sploshing.

Trump Rage Splosh ‘n’ Art!

Since we’re at my Big Easy Speakeasy, I also consider it a kind of New Orleans-style voodoo.

As Bruce Springsteen said, it’s “time for an exorcism in our nation’s capital.”

Many Americans from all political points on the spectrum—from socialist ethical hedonists like me to old-school Republicans like the Lincoln Project—are pooling our energies and influence into a witch’s brew of power to exorcise the White House and smash this Trumpkin once and for all.

Riding My Broom over Trumpkin, smashing his pulpy remains with my Louboutin Red-Bottoms. Photo: Harry Sapien

I don’t know if we can do it. If we can’t, well then, the recording of me Smashing Trumpkin will probably be used against me or, at least, solidify my position on the Antifa American Enemies List.

I’m just trying to save my country through voodoo!

Hopefully, it works. So many other things haven’t. By the time you read this, we’ll know… maybe.

And by the time, I’m done smashing, it’s time for Madame Margherite’s Animal Play awards, and I’d never step on her sexy toes.

If you saw DomCon LA 2020, you might know the marvelous Madame M bestowed the “Best Animal Activist” award upon yours truly.

So… Go bonobos! Or go cats, snakes, parrots or Pomeranians!

Release your inner animal—whether a black cat, cute puppy, snake, spider, bat or bonobo—it’s great to do for Halloween or any day or night you like.

We humans are animals too, of course, though we often forget this essential evolutionary fact, much to our detriment and quite possibly to the impending destruction of most life on Earth.

Winding up, I blow a kiss to all the great denizens of DomCon and get on with the serious task of celebrating Halloween with tricks and treats in BOOnoBOOville.

Chico does a few tricks (I’m teaching him to shake hands like a good businessperson!) and the rest of us have treats.

Erotic Exotic Halloween Candy: Chocolate Vulvas! Photo: Harry Sapien

One of the treats is a set of chocolate vulvas meant for Labia Day, but we forgot about them, so they’re now officially Halloween candy.

However, they’re more of a trick than a treat; they look really cool, but they taste like sugary cardboard.

Better to eat a real pussy or a Snicker’s bar.

On the other hand, Ana’s cooking is just a pure treat, no tricks necessary.

Witchy True Love. Photo: Selfie

As Halloween day turns to night, I take my beloved Captain over the Blue Moon on my Magic Broom, past our pre-election stresses and Coronapocalyptic fears, tripping the light fantastic into a super-Tantric, multi-orgasmic, divinely ecstatic witch’s heaven of love.

RIP Dr. Betty Dodson

I just learned that one of my most beloved mentors, Dr. Betty Dodson (1929-2020), the great Godmother of Masturbation, died on the Blue Moon of Halloween night.

Dr. Betty Dodson, leading the Women’s Movement and the Sexual Revolution in the 1970s.

It’s fitting she flew off on her Magic Broom on Halloween since she was one of the greatest, most magical sex witches of our times.

Did I say “death rises” on Halloween? I didn’t mean for Thanatos to take one of the world’s greatest people.

Well, at least she lived a good long, full, fun-packed 90 years of Eros.

She attributed her longevity to “pot, garlic and masturbation.” If she’s right about that, I should be around for a while too.

Here’s a confession: Betty Dodson gave me my first orgasm.  

Well, not her personally. It was her book that gave it to me. I was 19 years old, and I’d never had an orgasm. Oh, I’d had sex a few times, mainly with my high school boyfriend, and he’d had plenty of orgasms. I’d masturbated since before I could walk, but not yet to *completion.* I did have involuntary climaxes occasionally when I rode a horse or did kip-ups in gymnastics. But no full-fledged voluntary orgasms until my first semester of my sophomore year at Yale. That was when I read a book that was most definitely not required reading for any of my classes: Betty Dodson’s Liberating Masturbation.

Betty Dodson’s… Sex for One is the quintessential self-help manual. Its message is self-revolutionary: If you can help yourself to the greatest sexual pleasure, you really don’t need to kowtow to the demands of an unreasonable husband, or wife, or religion, or government. No wonder masturbation is still so taboo.

No, I didn’t date any Skull & Boners during my sojourn at Yale, but I was seeing a gorgeous young math genius on the crew team named Steven, and one morning, when Steven left for his 8am math class, I remember lingering in bed. Lazily, I started to pick up where Steven had left off, but I didn’t know what to do. Not exactly. So, being a bookish girl, I reached for a book. We were reading Antony and Cleopatra in Shakespeare class. Though I found the play to be quite erotic, I knew old A&C wouldn’t tell me what I needed to know at that critical moment. Nor would my psych or philosophy textbooks or even my French Fleurs du Mal. So I pushed them all aside for a little illustrated pamphlet I’d picked up from one of the consciousness-raising women’s groups so popular back then.

The pamphlet was Liberating Masturbation. I perused a few paragraphs as I continued to touch myself. Within less than a dozen pages, I’d received a lesson in female anatomy like I’d never been given before. In a smart, friendly, no-nonsense style, Betty told me exactly what and where my clitoris was (nobody else ever had!), and how to touch it to make it feel wonderful. She told me to relax and breathe deep(!), something I’d never thought of doing with sex, despite all my years doing yoga. So, I inhaled and exhaled deeply, as I stroked and played with myself like I’d played since I was a baby, but this time I followed Betty’s instructions, pushing myself farther, rubbing and pulling, licking my fingers and feeling the power, checking back with the book for ideas, breathing more and more deeply, rubbing faster and slower and then faster again, until lo and behold, the proverbial dam burst, the bed shook, the dorm room spun, and I bounced off the cliff into my first full-fledged, voluntary orgasm.

Plopping myself down on Dr. Betty Dodson’s lap before I even knew who she was. Photo: Dr. Michael Perry

I remember feeling awe-struck, like I’d gone through a personal revolution right there in my tiny, sheltered, little dorm room bed, passing through a “rite of passage” that none of my anthropology books dared describe. I felt blessed, or maybe just lucky, like I’d been given a gift from God, or the Goddess, or Nature, a pure pleasure that I didn’t have to work for, didn’t cost any money and didn’t require *faith* in myths or suppositions, didn’t have to get *from* someone else because I could give this to myself. I marveled that something so easy could be so explosive, yet so gentle. And I remember realizing I was hooked, that at that point, after 19 years of life on earth, I had become orgasmic. I knew, right then and there, that no matter what happened, the rest of my life would include these exquisite explosions of pleasure. Pretty much whenever I wanted, I could enjoy a little piece of heaven on Earth. It was all just as close as my fingertips.

I remember drifting blissfully in that tiny little dorm room bed, as if I were Cleopatra floating down the Nile on her perfumed barge toward Antony, her erotic destiny. Then I remember glancing at the clock and realizing that if I didn’t get out of bed that minute, I’d miss that Shakespeare class. So I threw on my clothes, picked up my books and left—a New Orgasmic Woman—then, now, and forever, a proud citizen of Betty Dodson’s Masturbation Nation, joining her “on the barricades” against sexual ignorance and repression.

Betty’s Liberating Masturbation was later revamped and renamed Sex for One. It became a classic. Over the decades, it has helped millions of women like me to have our first orgasms, or just summon the courage to touch ourselves. As the title indicates, Sex for One is the quintessential self-help manual. Its message is self-revolutionary: If you can help yourself to the greatest sexual pleasure, you really don’t need to kowtow to the demands of an unreasonable husband, or wife, or religion, or government. No wonder masturbation is still so taboo.

Dr. Betty Dodson on DrSusanBlock.Tv in 2006. Photo: Alex Saglimbeni

Though Betty gave me and countless other women one of the greatest gifts ever, the power of self-pleasure, back in the late 1970s, she and I didn’t actually meet until 1994.

We were at a birthday party for our mutual friend, Spectator publisher Cat Sunlove, when we caught each other’s eye. I was seduced by Betty’s sparkle, her warmth and unvarnished sincerity, and I immediately sat my butt down in her welcoming lap as if I lived there. Then someone told me who she was, and I was blown away; this lady had given me the keys to the pleasure castle! I immediately became one of Betty’s many adoring friends.

Though Betty resided in New York—in an apartment she’d had for over 50 years (longer than most marriages)—our friendship grew and deepened. She was a delightful guest on several of my shows over the last few decades. We didn’t always agree; she didn’t *believe* in female ejaculation, like I did, and we had an ongoing debate about it that we called “The Squirting Dialogues.”

But mostly, we did agree about sex, politics (she was vociferously anti-war, joining me in opposing Bush’s unconscionable Iraq invasion when most were applauding it) and the rest of life. Always examining new ideas and techniques, Betty was one of the earliest cheerleaders for The Bonobo Way.

Celebrating Betty’s 87th Birthday with The Bonobo Way & Sex by Design in 2016. Photo: Sarah Bella

The last time I saw beautiful Betty was at her 87^th birthday, also a celebration of her memoir, Sex by Design, documenting her unique and iconic life in her iconoclastic, plain-spoken, deeply authentic style. It was just a couple of weeks after the passing of another great sex-positive pioneer, Good Vibrations founder Joani Blank, so I was feeling acutely appreciative of Betty’s life.

Little did I know that the kiss we gave each other that night would be our last.

Betty always made me feel special whether I was in her arms or reading her words. Of course, I’m just one of multitudes. Betty inspired many people—I doubt that Jeffrey “Zoom Dick” Toobin properly credits her, though he should—but there was no one quite like Betty.

Maybe I would have figured out how to have an orgasm on my own, without the helping hand of Liberating Masturbation, but who knows? In a way, I literally owe my orgasms—and more (but what’s really “more” than orgasms?)—to Dr. Betty Dodson.

May her memory live on through eternity, inspiring us to take matters of importance—like pleasure—into our own hands, to make love, not war, and go bonobos.

In remembrance of this extraordinary woman’s powerful, sexual self-help legacy and with hope for a sex-positive future, let’s rub one out tonight for the great Godmother of Masturbation, Dr. Betty Dodson.

One last kiss for the amazing Dr. Betty Dodson. Photo: Sarah Bella

October 31, 2020 Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sex therapist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and horny housewife, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For speaking engagements, call 213-291-9497.

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